Colors
by Sulcal
Summary: Nanaki does a little bit a ruminating after he realizes he's outliving the rest of AVALANCHE. Oneshotness.[Warning: Character death and cryptic meanings]


Author's Note: Okay, here goes nothing. I've been working on this for about a week with what little time I have. A quick one shot for Red, 'cause he never gets enough love. Well… in my opinion. This is actually still kind of a work in progress… (sigh) Other than that, assume what you will.

**Disclaimer:** I owneth not. All characters go to their respective titles.

**Colors**

_A one-shot thing…_

Death… Red seemed quite acquainted with Death, and it followed him doggedly at every turn. Well… that was what it felt like, considering the years that have passed really only feel like a few to him. Sometimes Red cursed his longevity, wishing that he were perhaps a domestic house-cat. But then he would remember his pride, snuffing at the idea of having just insulted himself.

As it was, he was already having to deal with something rather difficult…

Tired, winkled mako-blue eyes glanced at him and a snarled old hand patted him slightly on the head.

Red remembered those eyes. It seemed just like yesterday that they were young and angry and full of undying determination. The white hair that this dying man possessed, he remembered, was supposed to be yellow and spiky. But… well, nothing was like that for him. He thought he'd grown used to the idea that he'd outlive everyone he knew. It was just that he didn't want to come to terms with it. Not ever.

Fate was mocking him somewhere out there. Red could feel it.

The Firecat snuffled at the hand. Cloud's hand. And the fact that it'd been at least ninety-one years since Meteor. Cloud was pushing 115, give or take a few years. Red knew this was only due to the massive amounts of mako and Lifestream the warrior had been exposed to--- probably would have lived longer had he not stressed himself over the years. Cloud was the last of AVALANCHE, save for two members, who were standing at the old man's deathbed and looking down at his old smile.

Ironically, the first to have left this plane of existence was Yuffie, the youngest of this ragtag group of heroes. Died saving the very person she was trying to steal from in some backwater town, where proper medical care and healing materia was at an all time low. It hadn't been long after Vincent's whole ordeal with WOR**(1).** Reeve was hit by a car. He didn't survive (and Red found that he hadn't much cared about him, though…). Old age caught Barret ---as it was now for Cloud--- and Marlene was well into her forties with a family and she'd married Denzel. Cid, of course, ended up with lung cancer, Shera had taken care of him even then.

Red found himself reminiscing over that. Cid's death hadn't been long ago to him. Perhaps ten or so years, maybe more. Red had attended his memorial service in Rocket Town and he'd seen how the entire town had felt so… dead after that. Cid never did hook up with Shera, nor did he ever think much about having a family. The last, Red remembered, was that Shera simply packed up and moved back to Mideel, where she had come from. For someone with lung cancer and several years of stress piled on him, Cid did live a full life.

Now Tifa was another story entirely. She had staid (and died) in Midgar, while Cloud had left to Gongaga once Tifa had finally closed Seventh Heaven for good as an old woman, the orphans having grown and left. Why they two never settled down like he'd thought they would ---and Red had hoped, because he _did_ want to see the two happy for once. He knew that, even though they may not have suffered as much as Vincent has, Gaia knows, but Red wanted to see them happy.

For a long, long moment, nothing was said.

Vincent, who was standing not far off, leaned in when Cloud beckoned with a slight hand motion, wheezing something even Red couldn't pick up.

Nibelheim. Cloud was to die here, in the old house he had once known as a child. Red was not happy to see this place again.

"As you wish…" Vincent murmured in response to whatever the old man in his bed had asked. His red eyes regarded Cloud with something akin to… fondness, Red thought. They weren't close friends, but there was understanding there.

For the first time since Red had arrived here, Cloud smiled a smile that was neither that of the suffering or that of a smile most dying men usually carried into death or into madness. His eyes, however, were _not_ of the old. They would always be forever burned into Red's memory.

It reminded him of the last time anyone had called him Nanaki, a name he didn't totally discard. It was just that he'd come to like the nickname 'Red' more than "Nanaki". Nanaki sounded like such a life time ago, and even those in Cosmo Canyon called him that now a days. He'd told Cloud he didn't have to keep forcing that strange name out just to make him feel accepted. And the used-to-be-blonde had given him the same look. The same smile.

A long while passed before Cloud finally did let go of life. Vincent had casted a sleep spell to ease the transition, and that had simply been that.

Come to think of it, he and Vincent were the only ones here in Nibelheim…

Cloud was buried not long after at the base of Mount Nibel. His grave was marked by a simply series of rocks placed, and Red had found that he couldn't watch Vincent place that old and wrinkled body into the hole he'd helped dig earlier.

It felt like burying himself alive at the thought that he had helped dig a grave for his _friend_.

"If you don't want to be here… you don't have to." Vincent had said, pushing dirt into the hole.

Red had shaken his head, the feathers adorning his fur shivering with the motion. "It wouldn't seem right to leave."

It hadn't. Still didn't.

Vincent had come to reside here in the Shinra Mansion, renovating it bit by bit as if to just pass time. Red couldn't leave now, knowing that the man was left here with the grave of one of the closest people to him as a reminder of what Hojo had done to him. After all, he couldn't exactly drop dead. The chance of him doing that was about the chance of Red dying his fur green.

Now Red was just sitting on a slight hill where it overlooked the old dirt road leading to this backwater town, silently thinking to himself as he watched the spring afternoon sun light the world around him in shades of pewter, strangled green, and browns. Not quite dusk, and night quite morning. Just an ordinary spring day, just having barely melted winter away.

He thought of Rocket Town again.

It had been autumn there, the day Red had been there for that couple of days.

Vincent had lived there with Cid. The gunner had been there the whole time, and Red was not surprised when the people of Rocket Town had come to pay respects to him as well, although he was sure the dark-haired man hadn't thought himself disserving of that level of respect.

Cid would be missed, still was for a fact.

And what Cid had done for him was something no one outside of Vincent's family had ever done... He'd cleaned out the back room and built a place for Vincent to stay. An art room, actually, having noticed ---without ever saying anything--- one of the dark-haired gunner's hidden talents.

Red had traveled there when Vincent had requested that he come. He'd also seen the way Vincent quietly packed everything he possessed up, but left all his paintings ---which had never been seen by other human eyes other than Cid's or Shera's--- behind to be auctioned off. Except for one, because Red had liked it enough to ask for it. And, without a second thought, Vincent gave consent.

"You are quiet…"

Vincent's voice caught him slight off guard. But Red lifted his head up to see the gunman walking over to him and he let the man know that his company was appreciated by nodding at him. Vincent didn't sit, instead, shaking his head.

The Firecat was content with that. The man had come to see if he was alright, which was just as good as a casual conversation to help forget a few things.

The gunner left after a moment of standing there, but without the flare of a heavy red cloak (it'd been removed to make Cloud's grave). Which was weird, and brought Red's prone-to-wandering mind to something else…

The painting he'd left in his home in Cosmo.

It was a beautiful watercolor painting. Filled with black and oranges and fiery reds and golds. In it stood a woman dressed in a red/gold kimono, holding her two or three year old son to her and his head tucked under her chin (one of his hands was touching her lips, her kissing the small fingers gently), both of their eyes closed and their hair was such a deep and sad black that it was almost painful to look at. Red saw the innocence in that painting. Not the innocence of the mother and her dear offspring cradled so lovingly in her arms, but the innocence of what it actually represented.

Every time Red had glanced to study it, he saw something new. Like how the boy's small fingers were tangling in the mother's hair and his smiling face, of how the slight age lines in the woman's face spoke volumes of things past, of how their hair, like ink-bottled black, melted into the scenery of red (which was ironically wrapped around the woman's forehead as well). There was a dot in the middle of the child's forehead, but the face of the child was like clam porcelain. Not quite a Wutain mother and child, no, not of those people, much too different in facial structure. This was from Vincent's memory. Surely one of his earliest and one that must have screamed at him to be put on canvas. And so, well, there it was... The astonishing truth that Vincent Valentine had a heart definitely far bigger than anyone else's.

No one could paint with colors so bold. No one could make colors that symbolized war and hatred and darkness feel and look so loving. No one could put such fine detail on that woman's face, which was far more defined than the boy's, actually.

And the boy's smile... A wise, knowing smile that warmed Red and made him think of his own mother. It was a tangle of too many emotions all in one and he was sure Vincent would never take up painting again. This had been his last creation before Cid passed. His brightest one, too. Nothing like the blues and dark greens that Vincent was fond of in the others.

Perhaps this was the way Vincent remembered her. These were _her _colors, Red thought. These brilliant colors of pride and love, these emotions of hatred and bliss... These were things no mortal man could capture out of his imagination. Nothing this forceful could ever be tamed by such water paints from the hands of a being without the prior knowledge of what these things meant and felt like after years of pain and torture.

Red shook his head and realized that the sun was going down, feeling his heart hurt with the events of the day and of how thinking of one stupid painting was making him rather angry at himself. All he thought of was how he felt… alone for some reason… And he was angry at this weakness. Angry that he could live for so long and that everyone else could not, angry that he found that he couldn't wish a longer life on any of them; they had all suffered enough.

* * *

Red's tail switched from side to side, the fire licking furniture, but not setting fire to anything. Ironic how that actually worked out. 

He was pacing the room back and forth, back and forth, claws digging slightly into the wood of the floor, growling slightly to himself.

Cloud was gone. Tifa was gone. Barret, Yuffie, Cid, Reeve… Only Vincent and himself remained.

He _knew_ one day he would have to come to terms with this… Still, that didn't make it any more pleasant. Red had grown… attached to those humans he came to realize. Even though he'd promised himself he wouldn't do such a thing. Red had found himself pacing and thinking, and pacing and thinking--- repeating these things as if he wasn't aware that he might be running a hole into the ground from pacing so much all at once.

Red had known that everything would come down to this one instant. This one moment when he would have to deal with the fact that he had out-lived his friends almost.

He needn't worry about Vincent (he was thinking a lot of him, wasn't he…). The gunman was immortal as well. Er… almost, anyways. If the man was shot in the head, Red was sure he wouldn't be exactly getting back up any time soon. Although… there _had_ been that one time…

Brushing the thought aside, Red growled a little as he stalked the breadth of what used to be the home Cloud lived in. It was anything but lived in. hadn't been touched since after the Meteor incident and save for earlier that afternoon. The dust settling over everything was proof of that.

_Vincent lives here,_ Red reminded himself. _It's like this is the last place on the planet left for him. Everything keeps tracing back to here. Maybe this is the last place **I** belong…_

Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't.

Come to think of it… Red, having turned the care of Cosmo Canyon over to more capable hands ---one's with opposable thumbs, for that matter--- some odd five years ago, had no real place either. Sure, Cosmo Canyon was his home, and he was the hero he wanted to be in their eyes, but…

But the people there were just like everyone else. The generation that could remember the horrors faced during Meteor grew old and senile and the details had all become forgotten, blurred into some thrilling tale rather than the truth it really was. This became unfocused by that time. And Red had no real wish to ruin the world's view of what had happened.

Part of him even wanted to believe those tales, to believe in the slight smudged details that he either omitted or fudged for the sake of the children asking him for the story. The other half wanted to roar at them the real things, to tell them that nothing ever works out that way, that he never really did have the happy ending he told the children of Cosmo Canyon.

"_And what happened after all **that**? Please tell us!"_

"_The world was safe, so I came home to share the things I'd learned. Began a new life…"_

"_Are you living happily ever after? Are you? Like in the old legends!"_

"…_Yes, I suppose I did get my happy ending."_

Red lashed out at the chair from the dinning table and the thing was in splinters, the pieces of wood littered all over the floor. He often did forget his own strength…

"It's not exactly nice to destroy someone else's property."

The cool voice caught Red off guard. He whirled around and readied himself for unleashing all of his pent up energy on the poor creature that disturbed him---

Vincent regarded him with the same tone as he had spoken in.

---and instantly deflated under those garnet eyes.

"I suppose it isn't…" Red growled out, resuming his pacing. Damned if he hadn't picked up that habit from Vincent.

Vincent situated himself so that he was sitting on one of the beds in the one room house, running his human hand along the quilt as if he had seen its making. Red wouldn't be surprised if he had. But no, the gunner simply studied it with far off curiosity.

"They are all gone, aren't they?" Vincent finally asked. He sounded emotionless, despite the quiver his voice held. "It is down to just us two."

Red stopped his pacing and looked at his friend.

_Friend… Yes, I suppose I can finally call him such a thing now._

"Yes, the two of us, Vincent."

It was silent for a stretched amount of time. The two just sat there studying each other. Well… more of Vincent studying everything but Red, and Red unable to really take interest in anything else.

Vincent finally opened his mouth, as if making to say something, but he suddenly looked dejected and withdrew the action, slipping further into himself.

"There is something you want to ask." It wasn't a question. Red knew how indirect Vincent tended to be towards things.

The man nodded.

"Go ahead. I'm tired of thinking to myself."

One good thing about having spent so many years of the same routine was the simple bond of trust they had formed. It was enough that the two were drawn together for the rest of Red's life.

He wasn't sure if Vincent would drop dead before him or if he was going to out live Vincent. Unlikely, all things considered.

The question came out as an echo of Red's thoughts…

"Where do we belong?"

And for once, Red had no comment for his friend's question. Normally he would have something to say, no matter the subject. Normally Vincent would have just shaken his head, brooding on that answer to see if he wanted it to be true or not.

On any other day, with any other question, Red would have felt a little piece of himself break off.

Instead, there was a sudden wholeness from those words.

Red padded softly over to the bed and jumped onto it, feeling the dust get sucked up his nose. Good thing he had lived in Cosmo for so long--- dust there got everywhere too. But it was less pleasant then the smell of red-earth under his paws. This was dust. Nothing more.

He did the only things he could do to give comfort. Vincent needed it far more than he did. Red rested one of his front paws on Vincent's thigh, claws carefully retracted, making a sort of rumbling noise in his throat and pushing his wet nose against the man's shoulder.

Vincent understood, more so than anyone would have, the meaning of those actions. And he smiled slightly as he turned a little to lean into Red.

_We belong to no one and nowhere…_ Red wanted to say. Wanted to bring the truth out in the open--- more for himself than anyone else. But nothing came out. The words were lodged and he was more than glad that Vincent was a mind reader, because he hadn't bothered to say them.

"You need dinner…" Vincent quietly murmured and moved to stand.

The moment was over. The silence was broken and it was time for a diversion from Sadness.

* * *

The kitchen in the Shinra mansion was completely unlike what Red had thought it would be. In fact, the mansion was no longer the old and rotten thing it had been in his memory, but clean and almost… new-looking. Vincent must have completed the renovations while trying to find ways to busy himself after the incident with WOR. WOR and their new Organizer were taking care of Midgar (which was once again the planet's Center and Light), which was fine with Red. Red had no wishes to see that city ever again if he could help it. 

His paws felt the cool tile of the kitchen and he could smell the newly laid cement that sealed the little pieces of white ceramic in place.

Faintly, Vincent rustled through the large pantry, but the Firecat paid no head to him, examining the chairs and the cool grey and forest green colors chosen for the renovated kitchen. The door to the dinning room was old and rotted, the hinges having rusted to the point where removing the door would have resulted in the doorframe and entire kitchen collapsing.

"I did not expect a guest, but you're more than welcome to stay as long as you see fit…" Vincent muttered as he finally emerged from the pantry with nothing in his hands that sported the notion of dinner. He simply leaned against one of the counters and cocked his head to the side, regarding Red as the Firecat sniffed around the room like some great hunter, bad pun aside. "However, I fear that you will have to hunt your dinner. I have nothing for Firecats here."

Then there was the fact that Vincent didn't have to eat anything. Sure, some of the gunner's body functions were normal. Hair grew, fingernails often needed clipping; general things like that. Those things required some source of energy. But other than that… the man didn't need anything. Perhaps that is where the whole vampire murmurs from days long ago came from. Because the most Vincent ever really did was drink a glass of red wine and simply watch everyone else.

Did Vincent miss eating? Could he still stomach eating? Or had he simply gotten used to the feeling of starving and never dying from it?

Red stopped his train of thought just as quickly as it had come careening though his head. Vincent was giving him a look that clearly stated he knew exactly what he'd silently been wondering, though not saying it aloud.

Come to think of it, if the man never needed to eat that much, what was the point in redoing the kitchen? Is that why he lived so far away from civilization?

Quickly, as to not anger his friend, Red left the kitchen to go hunting and was rather surprised, after just reaching the path leading to the mountains behind Nibelheim, that there was indeed a small pack of wolves sniffing about.

_Animal attraction._ Red thought absently. _They can smell me…_

And just as easily as breathing, Red XIII feel into his instincts, claws extending and his eyes dilating to focus on only his prey.

They had been easy enough to kill off and eat. Red didn't believe much in having their souls stay upon this plane of existence and left the skulls to place in the tree he had dragged the carcasses under as thanks for sustaining his own life by him taking theirs.

Then he simply returned to the mansion. The front door had been left open some, seeing as Red had no actual way of turning the knob. Not having opposable thumbs in a place built solely for humans was bothersome.

And he stopped for a moment, having picked up a sharp noise.

Not far into the large house was someone yelling. Not in pain or anguish or anything having to do with being hurt in any shape…

Red's curiosity got the better of him, and he got the distinct feeling that he was going to use one or several of the nine lives most people thought cats of any size had. That would probably bring him down to three lives, considering all of his lucky breaks.

He crept silently to the cracked door leading to the sunroom, and listened carefully. He was able to see Vincent pacing through the limited light in front of the large window in the hallway there. Vincent was talking to someone over his PHS. But Red kept a hold on his thoughts and cleared his mind (an old shaman thing he learned long ago when dealing with frustration or anger). This way Vincent would have less of a chance knowing he was eavesdropping.

"No." Vincent replied sharply into the phone, which was cradled between his ear and his uncloaked shoulder. The man was pacing again, doing the same thing he always did when doing so; taking the battered ring he normally kept in his pocket and messing with it, glaring at whatever just so happened to be in his path.

There was a long pause.

"I have told you, I am no longer---" Vincent stopped pacing, suddenly stopping mid-sentence. "Yes, I know… Files or not I _will not_ have anything further to do with the Turks or Shinra. I am no longer duty bound to anyone."

Red crouched lower to the ground, ears folded back a little further.

"…Her files? Records of… how did you get those?"

Vincent looked angry. Rather… far beyond that: Livid. The door leading to the piano and tearoom seemed about to combust into flames from the glare the gunner sent it.

"I'll be there in a week. Try anything and you'll have something far worse than Sephiroth's wrath to deal with!"

The PHS was folded up and nearly slammed down on the windowsill.

Red pushed open the door and Vincent jumped slightly at the growled question, "I never thought I'd see the day Vincent Valentine caved in under black mail."

The anger had not been fully locked away when Vincent regarded Red. The man was still glaring. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough."

"Then it is none of your concern."

"No, it isn't. But one can't help but wonder what Shinra still has on a long since dead Turk to bring him back from the grave."

The anger faded quickly. Red was prone to watching the man's eyes. Caught between human shape and inhuman color. If people bothered looking, they'd find that the demonic gunman wasn't as hard to read or as mysterious was he would appear to be.

Vincent turned to look out the double pained glass window. Something far more human-like when he curled his arms around himself and leaned his forehead on the clear barrier between him and the outside world. He was still missing his cloak, but the headband was still there (Red had never seen him remove it, ever).

He looked… tried for once.

Red came up to him, jumping up a little so that his front paws rested on the edge of the windowsill and his head came up roughly to about Vincent's shoulder. "I won't pry if you don't want me to, but I'm not going to sit here and let you suffer in silence…" he said levelly.

"…Our specimen files," The man finally said in a soft tone. No emotion was in it. Nothing like the anger from talking to whoever had just talked to him.

"Ou---" Red immediately clamped his maw shut, hopping down to sit on the floor.

"No. It's alright. Ask."

"'Our'?"

"Mine and my mother's."

"You've been looking for them?"

Vincent nodded, and he too sat on the floor next to Red, his left hand reaching out to stroke behind one of Red's ears. Red took not in that the gauntlet had also been removed, and hadn't noticed that Vincent had never put it on today…

Red knew that he probably didn't mean to treat him like a cat, so he simply took comfort in the attention, rumbling a little in his chest.

"I have been searching for those files. Hojo hid them from me quite well. They want me to protect someone that they are transferring to another location."

Confidential information. Vincent probably didn't even realize he was leaving things out. Once a Turk, always a Turk.

Red finally let his mind fill with thoughts and questions and felt Vincent's hand pause for a brief moment.

None of the questions were answered, of course. Most likely never would be.

"You're an enigma, you know that, right?" Red finally asked after a long moment of silence.

Vincent shrugged a little, not answering.

The silence finally went from angry and awkward to just plain silence. The kind of quiet that was usually right when you wake up from sleep and there is no motion what so ever around you. Peaceful in a way.

Red's mind went back to the painting he loved so much, back to the reds and the golds and he felt like he wanted to paint this hallway with those colors.

Suddenly, human arms with monstrous strength encircled him and Vincent's face was pressed into his shoulder, fingers twining with bright red fur.

Red was confused for a moment. Then he relaxed into the hold.

Black and red. The colors were soon becoming the Firecat's favorite. And the realization of something far more awkward came to light.

"Do not say it." Vincent murmured, reading into Red's thoughts. "Do not say those words. Do not be so accepting of me."

He didn't.

The words stayed locked away (not the one's he wanted to say in that old house, but different and far more strange ones), replaced with a different question.

Red shifted so that he was a bit more comfortable, leaning into Vincent in return. "You said I could stay as long as I saw fit, correct?"

Vincent nodded.

Nothing more was said about the matter.

That night, though, when the two settled into bed, Vincent murmured something low.

"To… Mideel… Would you go with me there?"

"Mideel?"

"To live. The land has already been purchased and I… have been meaning to go there…"

When Vincent trailed away, Red got up from his spot on the floor next to the man's bed, leaping onto it, hearing the springs groan in protest to more weight on the old mattress. Red had heard about Vincent's childhood home there when his mother fled with him from Wutai. Vincent had told only a little of that tale, but the Firecat was sure that that was what he had meant--- a secluded place in the middle of a dense forest. Plenty of room for Red to hunt and not far from the actual city of Mideel… Well, why the hell not? It wasn't like staying _here_, where the last of their friends was buried, was going to be any more pleasant.

Vincent turned so that his back wasn't facing Red any longer, moving some so that there was room for the Firecat to plop down next to him. Red kneaded at the mattress for a moment, circling, circling, and settling when he was sure that his nightly routine was accomplished. Why he did so before bed was something he didn't even understand himself.

Red closed his eyes. A new color to add to the list; dark green. He nodded.

Whether Vincent took it as a yes or as an 'I'll-think-on-it' or not, it was completely up to the gunner. Red hoped it was the first and not the latter two.

The night went on as such. With the light of the moon splaying silver through the window draperies, the strangely cool spring wind whispering in through the open window. Red couldn't sleep at all. So he settled for watching Vincent sleep.

One would think the man had done enough sleeping over the course of thirty-something odd years… but… well, Vincent was sleeping like the dead (_I need to work on the bad puns thing…_) and Red watched how the dim light cast the room into illumination, creating shadows that reminded him, once again, of Vincent's paintings. And of the words that he so desperately had wanted to say in the hall.

He was silent.

The colors melted into each other, dancing like the dancers around Cosmo Candle during holidays and celebrations. Tumbling and blurring in the dimness and making sleepy patterns, like a veil was covering his mind or a switch was being flipped, finally turning him into Slumber's embrace by the time the clock read "11:11" and he was never aware that the thought of moonlight dancing was an absurd way of describing the way it lit the face of the person next to him. The term simply didn't do justice.

But he let it be as it simply was, closing his eyes after trying to blink the haze off a few times.

Silver was something that reminded him, absently, of the metal on his clip that held the feathers in his fur in place. And of one of his second level Limit Breaks, Lunar High. Why that was would forever be a mystery. Red never even remembered how he'd fallen asleep, only to find himself dreaming again…

* * *

There were things you notice, sometimes, during dreams that actually make you realize that something in your subconscious was trying to tell you something. 

It's only because Red was standing out over the canyon he called home, watching over it and prowling along its edges. It was good to feel the earth below his paws, cool and strong and proud. However, he was seeing everything a little differently. Not like one would see the real world. No, he was seeing it all like watercolor paints and every time he stepped somewhere his paws left a black print. Not tainting it. Rather, more like adding to it.

The landscape he was actually seeing turned from Cosmo to something red. And he never realized that the urge to run across this expanse ---red, always crimson as far as his sharp hunter's eyes could see--- could be so great. It felt wet a little. But solid. Definitely solid. Which was weird. Red had never really had this kind of dream before. Sure he dreamed of something where the ground was crimson and the sky was as gold as it was now, with endless amounts of black flecks for stars in the watery oblivion. However, he didn't dream that the ground was not of fabric and that it was wet and not cool, rather warm actually, and that he was still running across it with some kind of panic pounding in his veins as his heart pounded blood through his body. Panic. This is what panic felt like. He never liked this feeling, it always lead to something awful at the end of it all.

He was flying, he thought for a moment. Running so fast and stopping, sliding across the wet ground just as the rain came down something golden. It soaked his fur, and somehow he wasn't changing golden.

Gold… that wasn't such a happy color. Never was to him.

Not a nightmare, but not exactly a good dream, either.

The back of his mind flared with something like recognition. _Have I seen this before? Where? And why?_

Red looked up at the rain for a moment, feeling it splash in his eyes. There was the smell of metallic tang in the air, in the rain and in the ground and in the wind, almost painful, feeling like rusty knives stabbing into his nostrils. The smell somewhat reminded him of the smell of Midgar. This was what was causing his panic. The rain turned red, falling that much heavier. Warm, too, _very_ warm. He blinked and the world went back to total normality.

He was awake now. And cold, ironically. Pawing at the bed, growling in his chest and feeling his heart pound.

Red was alone.

It wasn't like it was all that important. Vincent had probably just gone to prepare to leave for Mideel.

The Firecat pushed himself to his legs tiredly. He didn't feel like he'd slept at all. So he decided he'd wander around for a bit.

Red found himself in the only room that hadn't been renovated. The room with all those plants in it. He remembered, vaguely, pondering why he'd come here and just simply decided that it was the smell of the living things amongst all the contrasting emptiness of the mansion.

Mideel…

Well, it wasn't like he was leaving Cosmo Canyon forever. He couldn't do that.

_Mideel… that is a bit a ways away…_

The words from the night before were threatening to tear out of him. Red murmured them to the empty air and let the colors of the green room wash him to another time in another place and back to that painting of the mother and her child.

The colors were washing up in his memory of many things. Most of which were during the Meteor Crisis. Strange how that also worked out, along with everything else.

Red made a grunting noise as he turned to leave this peaceful room for good.

He may be returning to the reds and oranges of Cosmo Canyon from time to time, but Midgar and Nibelheim were the only places he'd never even considering stepping paw again. Not to the dreary grays and sickening mako-greens. Not to those colors.

Those memories were best left six feet under with Cloud. Better yet: left even deeper than the underground lab below the mansion.

Colors meant for a lifetime ago, and on an entirely different planet than the one he knew.

**END**

****

(1)--- Please correct me if I got that wrong and I'll correct it as soon as possible.

And there you have it. A one shot.


End file.
